SASUKE 40's Rating

[cb]

SASUKE 40's rating has been revealed to be 10.6% on Sasukepedia, the highest it has been since SASUKE 32.

[dakohosu]

Honestly, good for them. I remember 36 and 37’s ratings were in the 5-6% range by comparison, though this would’ve obviously had something to do with the fact that they were NYE broadcasts, but also because their social media presence wasn’t really that big prior to 38-39.

Despite my reservations about some of the marketing choices like the rushed recaps of the 39 tournaments, as well as the editing of the tournament itself, they clearly knocked it out of the park with the trailers and YouTube videos leading up to the tournament.

I just hope they don’t attribute this solely to it being the 40th anniversary and work equally hard to create hype for future competitions through their social media.

I also am concerned that they’ll use this as an excuse to invite yet more joke competitors and spotlight them more aggressively, but to a certain degree it’s a necessary evil as much as I found some parts of Stage 1 a complete slog. If the ratings were high across Stages 3-4 then hopefully they’ll realise that a good chunk of viewership wasn’t just there for Snow Man etc, they wanted to see the meat of the action, and so they’ll respond accordingly.

[lostinube]

The rating is not bad by modern standards. The viewer number Video Research is putting out is 31 million. It had almost but not quite as many people watching as the Record Taisho which features popular music artists.

The viewership landscape in Japan has changed a lot over the years SASUKE has been on and a 10.6 in 2022 would put it above a lot of shows. It would NOT put it above the M-1 Grand Prix from 2022 or most comedy shows because the one thing that still can draw people aside from certain dramas are comedians. Also, the artist of the year on the Record Taisho was Snowman, who also held the top spot on the Oricon countdown when their album dropped in September. Snowman is popular. TBS would be dumb to ditch disconnect themselves from them in their promotion of the show.

[zoran]

Jan 5, 2023 0:15:40 GMT -5 lostinube said:

The rating is not bad by modern standards. The viewer number Video Research is putting out is 31 million. It had almost but not quite as many people watching as the Record Taisho which features popular music artists.

The viewership landscape in Japan has changed a lot over the years SASUKE has been on and a 10.6 in 2022 would put it above a lot of shows. It would NOT put it above the M-1 Grand Prix from 2022 or most comedy shows because the one thing that still can draw people aside from certain dramas are comedians. Also, the artist of the year on the Record Taisho was Snowman, who also held the top spot on the Oricon countdown when their album dropped in September. Snowman is popular. TBS would be dumb to ditch disconnect themselves from them in their promotion of the show.

How much do you think the ratings would have increased if Snowman made it to a)Stage 3, b)The Final or c)Kanzened?

[lostinube]

It wouldn't move the ratings throughout the show that much unless they made the final and if they Kanzen Seiha'd it would make news. You use Snowman etc to get people to tune in with TBS knowing that they probably won't get all that far. Very few of them actually plan to be on set any longer than after their run. But you need them to promote the show and have something to put into the TV listings and news articles. Like pro wrestling, there is booking for the hardcore fans and booking for a wider audience. One gets more attention than the other. Stunt booking definitely gets attention and if they can actually put on a good match, that is simply a bonus.

One of the better things Inui has done is that although he had to play favorites, he has created a group of guys that can be recognizable ambassadors for the show. Guys that can attend all the events, do live streams and whatnot. But they are niche celebrities who bridge the gap between longtime fans and the wider audience by being featured alongside other actual celebrities. They can only generate so much attention on their own.

[brz0ny]

Jan 5, 2023 6:52:16 GMT -5 zoran said:

Jan 5, 2023 0:15:40 GMT -5 lostinube said:

The rating is not bad by modern standards. The viewer number Video Research is putting out is 31 million. It had almost but not quite as many people watching as the Record Taisho which features popular music artists.

The viewership landscape in Japan has changed a lot over the years SASUKE has been on and a 10.6 in 2022 would put it above a lot of shows. It would NOT put it above the M-1 Grand Prix from 2022 or most comedy shows because the one thing that still can draw people aside from certain dramas are comedians. Also, the artist of the year on the Record Taisho was Snowman, who also held the top spot on the Oricon countdown when their album dropped in September. Snowman is popular. TBS would be dumb to ditch disconnect themselves from them in their promotion of the show.

How much do you think the ratings would have increased if Snowman made it to a)Stage 3, b)The Final or c)Kanzened?

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesnt just tuning in for the show for couple of minutes add up for ratings so him going out in First Stage or Kanzening makes almost no difference?

[lostinube]

There have been hourly breakdowns of the show in the past - notably during at least one of the Kanzen Seiha's, Yuuji's second if I recall correctly - but it isn't always publicly available or at least you have to pay to get that info. They've also broken down the shows into halves for rating purposes but that is rare.

But in general, that is correct, it doesn't make a big difference which is why everything before the show is important for the ratings.

[lostinube]

Video Research Co finally put out the top ten ratings for the week SASUKE aired. For whatever reason, the rating was broken into two different slots, one from 6:00 to 7:00 and one from 7:00 to the end of the program. That second section received the 10.6. The first hour got a 7.1. The 10.6 was good enough to be the highest rated sports program in it's week although really, the only thing against was the New Year's Ekiden (relay marathon).

The split for SASUKE 39 was 7.3 for the first hour and 10.0 for the rest of the show. So while the 10.6 represents the highest rating in three years, it wasn't all that much different from the general rating of the show over the "Rising" period and beyond - since SASUKE 28 the show generally gets something in the range of 9 - 10 when the show is not being used by TBS to fill their New Year's Eve slot.

Although the Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Songfest) has gotten lower and lower ratings over the years, it still commands the highest rating on New Year's Eve because it has something for everyone with the range of performers who are on the show every year. Some stations in Japan, notably TBS, started counter-programming the Kohaku in the 2000s with something known as 大晦日興行 (Omisoka Kogyo) or New Year's Eve Box Office which was essentially started by the first Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye shows which were a mixture of pro wrestling and MMA. At the height of Pride and K-1 in the mid-2000s, you would see more than one channel with MMA on New Year's Eve. But eventually the boom faded. TBS kind of kept the tradition alive with Kyokugen, a sports program that would feature live kick-boxing and boxing matches. Kyokugen went off the air in 2017 and SASUKE was used in that slot for 2018 and 2019 even to the point of having a boxing match in the middle of the show in 2018. In 2019 they put the boxing before SASUKE and that might have actually hurt SASUKE's rating since the boxing scored a 9.4 on it's own.

Long story short, as long as TBS doesn't use SASUKE as a sacrificial lamb on New Year's Eve, the show's rating has been fairly stable for almost a decade.